The thing that I love about the written Bond is his sheer humanity. The James Bond in the books is a regular guy, albeit with an awesome job. In this book, three particular things endeared me to 007: he was worried about disappointing the lone father figure in his life (M); he got caught up in the jingoistic fervor that almost destroyed the U.K.; and he didn't get the girl. Another moment that hit me pretty hard between the eyes was a page or two where Mr. Fleming writes about Bond's decision-making process. I expected something cool, hard-headed, and analytical. Instead, it was "What the f*** am I gonna do?!?"

I think Mr. Fleming could have called this "A Week in the Life of a Secret Agent." I really felt like he pulled on his personal experience as a secret agent for this one and put in a lot of quasi-boring details about Bond's non-secret mission work. Thankfully, the life of a secret agent doesn't have too many boring details. No, they're mostly fascinating and turn 007 into James Bond.